Jeff,
Let it suffice to say that as a young brakemen,conductor or engineer on
the Aurora extra list you rarely lacked for work. If anything you begged for
a day off. Have you ever doubled or tripled out in a single day ? Except
in January when you starved. No guarantees back in the day.
It's hard to imagine the amount of work that once existed in Aurora/Eola
and the wayfreights operating from there or on the Aurora Div.. We've just
scratched the surface in our previous discussions.
If you ever bump into Roger Field ,I believe his hire date is 1965. He
started at Eola. Or Izzy Jr at Rochelle who is like a early 1960s something
hire date.
Oh and if you work the dinlkies find Dick Temple before he finally
retires. His BN hire date is around 1971 or so but before that he worked the
CNW
mainline passenger trains in the 60s.
Darro Reppy can tell you about his first couple summers on the passenger
extra list at Aurora. His wife would hand up clean clothes as they unloaded
passengers at Aurora. He wouldn't be home for days as he got his rest at
the away terminal of Savanna,GT or Burlington. He would get a message while
in route to protect such and such upon arrival at CUS.
By the way both Cat and Lyon received coal for the power plants,inbound
plate and shipped scrap out back in the day. On the Earville turn in 1974/75
we pulled no less than 3 and up to 6 loads of scrap per day from Cat. Old
"frenchy" was the crane operator on the Cat scrap dock and had been doing
it for like 30 plus years there and at Peoria. He could look at a load and
tell you w/in about a ton how much was in it !
The Armour Job,Nabisco PM,Earville Turn,Fox River were almost a daily race
to get in before going dead on the law. Imagine riding hand brakes at
Sheridan for hours while weighing loads of gravel ?! Then going to Wedron to
switch it out.
The Irish Mail for decades was a 15-16 hour ringer 6 days a week. When the
"mails" came on w/General Mills in West Chicago there were 3 jobs a day
and all were on OT everday.
Then we ran extras on Sundays to clean things up !
I was called more than once to work a yard extra at Eola just to help the
2-3 assigned jobs/shift keep things fluid. Yes there was an East,West, and
often a Roustabout engine. Not every shift but fairly steady. And add an
extra just to keep things really crowded.
In the past there was a frt house job at Aurora that was a 16 hour
ringer,besides the Aurora engine. The Alley job was the highest seniority job
in
the Eola/Aurora terminal. Stay tuned as I keep making progress on that
research that has been 30 plus years in the works. I have an orginal drawing
of
the Alley crew going to work done by fireman Mike Meketti in 1948. It
once hung in the "old" Eola yard office. One look at it says everything as the
burro looks exhausted.
Speaking of roustabout that was also the name of the afternoon Fox River
for years. They would use the same power that came off the morning Fox
River. But they went over to Earville via Baker/Catherine until the kids burnt
the bridge down. When it came off it was replaced by the Ottawa-Catherine
Turn. 85/86 ran everday from Cicero to Streator.Then became 11811-812 under BN
and made the round trip each night.That was one interesting job.
Then there was the IV&N W/F from La Salle to Zearing which I was told more
than once by Red Lynch worked 16 hours/day,even on the day it came off.
Cement and perishable connections were the reasons.
The Rockfalls w/f worked out of Eola to Rockfalls/Sterling 2 round trips a
week and made an Earville turn on Weds. Then it shifted to a Mendota base
and the Eola-Earville turn came on.
Check out some of the older Q photo books for shots of both jobs at
Earlville together.
The moonlight job ran Cicero to Barstow via Mendota and Denrock. 2 turns.
Then kept getting shortened up.
There were yard engines at
Ottawa,Streator,LaSalle,Mendota,Rockfalls/Sterling,Rockford. There were even
extra lists at these points to protect
vacancies. Most were multiple shift locations..
There were way freights on the C&I,around the horn,to Rockford. Road
switchers at Rochelle(up to 3 depending on the year or time of year), and
Oregon.
C&I and mainline frt pools.
And this was in the 50-70s. Going farther back you add in all the
C&I,Mainline and branch passenger jobs. I even have info on the motor cars and
milk
trains,baggage jobs and mail trains.
"Nothing is so constant as change"
Leo Phillipp
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